Inertiaviks and changeaholics

"Inertiaviks and changeaholics" is a great phrase I saw the other day used by ex-Blackburn with Darwen council leaderSir Bill Taylor to describe the warring factions of public service reform. Basically it describes those who are adamant things should stay exactly as they have always been, and those who want nothing less than Total Revolution. Adherents to these tendencies exist in most organisations, public and private, and you'll probably recognise the types.

But what about the public? Do they favour inertia or change? According to the latest research by the 2020 Public trust think tank they are, on the whole a bit of both. Their "empirical" streak means that while they are perhaps more open to new ways of doing things - personal budgets, community control of services and so on - than is often assumed, they also value the security and fairness of strong public services.

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• Keep it practical and specific – Voters might initially be attracted to big ideas but they soon start to question their practicality. What they are interested in is not so much vague principles but more practical, concrete examples of how change might work. They want to see the evidence of how a particular idea has worked and what the pros and cons have been.
• Gradual, small scale and incremental – People want change which is organic, which goes with the grain and grows out of existing structures rather than root and branch change. That means identifying the changes which are already working and looking at what can be learnt from these. And it means building from the bottom up with small scale changes which can be spread rather than grandiose new initiatives.
• Start with newer, non-core services – People are more likely to support new ways of doing things for either new services or what they see as, non-core services. So mutuals, volunteering and co-payment will work best if they start with services such as parks and leisure services. Whilst the focus groups did not explore how public services might respond to some of the new behavioural challenges such as carbon reductin, and obesity, it would be reasonable to conclude that these may also be areas which are ripe for more innovation."

Rick notes the judge's comments that the council's "summary dismissal" of Shoesmith "created the appearance of an unfair process." If the tribunal takes a similar view, says Rick:

This could leave us with the bizarre conclusion that Ed Balls was legally entitled to remove Ms Shoesmith from her post but that Haringey acted illegally when it dismissed her from its employment.

He continues:

The law seems to allow the Secretary of State to look tough by sacking a Director of Children's Services while leaving the local authority, as the employer, to do the dirty job of terminating her contract and paying out any compensation arising from the case. This is clearly bonkers! As I have said before, this case highlights the pretend-localism of the British state. We can't decide whether we want centrally or locally controlled public services so we end up with a hazy ambiguous muddle.

Incidentally, you can read the full judgement, and the judge's remarks on the case here.

To be fair to Cameron, in his response to questions he made the argument that the private sector needs to be larger in the Northern regions, Wales and Northern Ireland. This is the right way to think about the issue. It is not so much that the public sector is 'too big' but that the private sector is 'too small'. There is little evidence that the size of the public sector in these regions has somehow 'crowded out' the private sector, and there is no reason to think that cutting the size of the public sector will somehow magically stimulate growth in the private sector. Indeed, the argument can be made that without the employment that the public sector has provided the situation could be even worse in some parts of the UK.

That's it from us, have a nice Bank Holiday and we will write again on Tuesday.

Society Guardian social enterprise summit

We are starting to plan this year's Society Guardian Social Enterprise Summit. Last year's summit was a great success - you can read about it here. Once again we are looking to showcase inspiration, innovation and practical ideas on how social enterprises can deliver public services. Whether you are from the public sector or from a social business, we want you to tell us who you'd like to see and what you would like to see discusssed. Email to charmian.walker-smith@guardian.co.uk. You can Follow Guardian Social Enterprise on Twitter